Ensuring a fire department is fully staffed is critical for the safety of our communities. Firefighters work long hours, averaging approximately 56 hours per week, and typically work 24-hour shift rotations. When they’re not responding to emergency calls, firefighters are participating in training courses, fitness activities, daily firehouse chores, inspections and study time. All this to say, firefighters have one of the most demanding schedules in the public safety industry.
Because of the scheduling challenges and long list of duties and responsibilities, most fire departments see the value in shift scheduling software. Using shift scheduling software, fire departments can manage time-off requests, track overtime, improve their training management, view insights and reports and more.
After reviewing many software solutions, our team has narrowed it down to the five best shift scheduling software solutions for fire departments.
Fire department software features we looked for:
We ranked five software solutions built for fire departments based on the following features. These features ultimately reduce the time spent scheduling shifts for fire departments. These features also increase overall department efficiency and improve employee processes.
The software features we looked for are:
- Automated scheduling
- Insights and reports
- Scheduling visibility
- Simplified leave and approvals process
- Enhanced overtime management
- Asset management
- Training management
Top Five Fire Department Shift Scheduling Software Solutions:
InTime
InTime is the leading fire department shift scheduling solution. InTime is purpose-built to handle the scheduling needs of the public safety industry, and the software is configurable to every organization and agency.
InTime’s fire department scheduling is an automated scheduling system that enhances your department’s scheduling visibility and enables your budget to go further. Each fire department can configure InTime’s software to their department rules, allowing them to reduce fatigue-related incidents, eliminate double-bookings and stay on top of their overtime management.
InTime’s fire department software features include:
- Automated scheduling: InTime’s scheduling system automatically creates and assigns shifts based on your organization’s rules. This efficient scheduling makes it easier for employees to know where they need to be, and when they need to be there. It also ensures every employee is properly trained for their assigned shift, reducing any chance of risk.
- Insights and reports: InTime’s reports mitigate your organization’s liability by giving you line-of-sight visibility into what your department actually needs.
- Simplified approval process: With just a few clicks, your employees can have their leave and time-off requests submitted and approved in minutes. InTime streamlines leave requests with built-in coverage alerts and time bank balances. This reduces scheduling errors and enhances department-wide communication.
- Overtime management: With overtime being an occupational hazard for firefighters, InTime was built with an automated overtime management process that allows for complete transparency over overtime management for fire departments. The automated system ranks firefighters based on overtime rules and assigns shifts accordingly.
- InTime Wellness: Fire departments have full access to InTime Wellness, a data-driven solution to address public safety employee wellness. Wellness monitoring dashboards are powered by comprehensive scheduling data, allowing you to identify problem areas related to employee fatigue and training level qualifications. InTime Wellness also features a Resource Library that provides 24/7, anonymous access to critical mental health resources.
InTime’s additional software modules for fire departments include asset management, training management, shift bidding, and more. All in all, InTime’s fire department scheduling software is the number one solution for fire departments that need an efficient, reliable and configurable scheduling system for their department. InTime is easy-to-use and ensures that every fire department is covered at all times.
Price: InTime’s pricing model is based on a variety of factors, such as agency size, number of modules, and training requirements. Please contact our sales team for a price specific to your agency.
Vector Solutions
Vector Solutions is a workforce management solution built for education and public safety industries. It specializes in creating software solutions for Fire and EMS, and its key features reduce the time spent scheduling, ensure labor and union policies are met and allow departments to easily maintain overtime compliance. Additional software features include:
- Simplified callbacks and deployment
- Insights and reports
- Enhanced communication through an app
- Simplified leave management
- Automated scheduling
- All employee information in one place
Aladtec
Aladtec is an online scheduling solution that was created to meet the needs of numerous public safety communities. One of the main features is the ability to send a text message or email out to any qualified firefighter when an open shift is posted.
With a flexible and easy-to-use design, Aladtec’s software features include:
Easy-to-use time-off process
Automatic approvals
Rotation scheduling
Scheduling reports
Software integrations
Price: Talk to a representative to learn more about pricing. They offer three different plans and a free standard trial for potential customers.
Eso
Eso is an employee scheduling software that features customizable dashboards and automated scheduling. The web-based tool automatically generates and populates schedules, fills open shifts and swaps and bids shifts. Other software features include:
- Time off bank automation
- Overtime management
- Training and certification tracking
- Reports and insights
- Time Clocks
- Automated scheduling processes
Price: Talk to a representative to learn more about pricing. They offer a free demo for all potential customers.
Connecteam
Connecteam’s scheduling software can help your department save on both time and effort for employee scheduling and planning. Some of its features include GPS time clocks, streamlined internal communication through key announcements and detailed shift information. Other features include:
- Drag and drop feature to duplicate schedules
- Enhanced team training
- Real-time notifications
- Department-wide schedule visibility
Price: Connecteam offers fixed monthly pricing starting at just $29 for up to 30 users.
The bottom line
By implementing scheduling software, your fire department can reduce the time spent on scheduling shifts. Shift scheduling software can also increase overall department efficiency, and mitigate risk and liability.
Contact our team today to learn more about how scheduling software can help your fire department.
